New Primary Rules, Old Turnout Levels

One putative goal of California's top-two election system was to improve primary turnout, but it seems to have done a lousy job on that score in its first test. A new Public Policy Institute of California report finds that primary turnout in 2012 was the second lowest on record and the lowest in any presidential election in 90 years.

In June 2010, Californians approved a ballot measure creating nonpartisan blanket primaries that send the top two finishers regardless of party to a November runoff. Republican centrists such...